The Costa Rican firm Cubica designs and sells some very interesting and very functional shipping container homes. They use reclaimed shipping containers to design homes that are small, but nevertheless spacious enough for comfortable living. The single family home designs they offer come complete with a rooftop deck, kitchen, full bath and even a laundry room. While primarily marketed as cabins or vacation homes, the Casa Cubica shipping container houses could also serve as a full time home for a couple or single person.Read more »

Royal Wolf, an Australian company specializing in hiring, selling and modifying new and recycled shipping containers, now has an HQ building made of shipping containers. This office is located in Melbourne Australia and was designed and built by the firm Room 11. One of the main purposes of this project was to showcase the fabrication and construction methods employed by Royal Wolf by using them to build their own offices.Read more »

The Danish architecture firm Lendager Arkitekter recently completed the experimental Upcycle House in Nyborg, Denmark. The goal with Upcycle House was seeing if carbon emissions of a home can be reduced through the use of recycled and upcycled building materials during the construction process. The end result was the reduction of CO2 emissions by 86% compared to a benchmark house. Upcycling is a sort of a next step in the recycling process, namely using recycled products and turning them into new materials or products of higher quality and greater value. In the case of Upcycle House, this reduced the need for new production and therefore reduced the CO2 emissions.Read more »

It took almost two years for real estate broker and Crossroads volunteer Jeff White to build an affordable home out of recycled shipping containers. A lot of opposition came from the architects he approached to help him with the plans, though there were also quite a few bureaucratic obstacles to overcome to get the necessary permits. But now the Sarah container home is finally built and ready for occupancy. Jeff was inspired to build the home after seeing the makeshift dwelling of a homeless San Francisco artist named Sarah, and he named his creation after her.Read more »

One of the more unique recycled home ideas is certainly the Morton Loft in New York City, which was constructed from a disused petroleum trailer tank. The architecture firm LOT-EK, which specializes in building homes from shipping containers, completed this project back in 2000. They used the tank to create 2 sleeping pods, which come complete with hydraulic piston hatchback doors, and 2 capsule bathrooms, which were placed on top of each other. The home was commissioned by Joshua Morton. To build the loft, the architects used a decommissioned tanker trailer, which still shows signs of wear and tear from its days on the road. It once carried 7,200 gallons of gasoline and weighs roughly 100 pounds per linear foot.

Sukup Manufacturing is a small company based in Sheffield, Iowa, which primarily manufactures agricultural products, which includes grain bins. About three years ago, Sukup also began manufacturing grain silo homes to be used as disaster relief housing in Haiti following the devastating earthquake there. They called this grain silo home a Safe T Home, and it was developed in partnership with Global Compassion Network and Iowa residents. In 2012 a shipment of these homes was transported to Haiti where volunteers and residents built the so-called “Village of Hope” from the silos. Safe T Homes proved very successful as relief housing, and they are now also available for purchase in the US through Sukup Manufacturing. Safe T homes can easily be used as vacation houses, or even tiny sustainable homes.